In the past few weeks, I've been testing the cabinet on a couple plants. Based on those tests, I made the following modifications:
- Outdoor venting - Venting the 400watt into the room just wasn't tolerable (for me or the plants). It frequently got up to 95+ in the room and low to mid 90s in the cabinet. I now have a seperate fan through the cooltube and out the window. Had to use a lot of ducting and 300CFM to make it happen, but it works. Now the room hits 85 and the cabinet usually doesn't crack 82. The intake is connected to the exhaust from my 250watt tent which sits right next to the cabinet. Doesn't seem to be much impact to temps when I have the 250watt light on.
- Removed the T5 lights/ Added CFLs - They were 24" long plus the power cords and didn't fit well horizontally. Perhaps I'll add them back vertically in the future, one in each corner. But for now, they're out. Added two 100W equivalent CFLs and a power strip inside the cabinet hooked to the timer strip on the back. There are warnings about not hooking two strips together, but as I understand it, this is just to prevent people from overloading. If you know what watt/amps you're pulling and you're below the limit on BOTH strips, you're fine. May eventually hook up a fan or two to blow the air around a bit more when the lights are on.
- Lowered/removed the shelf - I had a totally untrained/trimmed Avalanche plant I was testing with which grew to about 40" not including the pot. The tips of the leaves began to burn even with the light basically touching the roof. Getting rid of the storage gives me ample room. I think that once I try my hand at scrog or maybe even do some LST, I'll put it back.
- Added a webcam to the cabinet. Able to check on things via laptop or iPhone. Note: I've got this secured from external access via VPN or SSH tunnel and appropriate wireless encryptions for in-house use. I don't recommend this unless you're confident in your configuration. The last thing you want is some kid down the street taking a peak at your grow!
Future:
I plan to get a
MiniGoose 2 after the holidays. Will allow me to have temp (and hum. if I like) sensors in my two tents, the cabinet, the room they're all in and outside. Will sample/trend every few min and log. Will also alert me at certain thressholds.
That's it for now, pictures to follow below. I expect to move my seedlings into big pots and into the cabinet tomorrow or the next day if everything goes as planned. Will post growlog URL too.
Thx,
DB